"These are the first real legislative elections since the beginning of the 21st century," said Pierre Allorant, historian and political scientist at the University of Orléans. The French have understood it: Polls suggest that turnout for the June 30 and July 7 elections could return to the high levels of the 1990s, around 60% to 70%. There has been a record number of proxy vote registrations – over 1.3 million by Sunday, June 23, according to the Interior Ministry.
The French don't go to the polls when they feel it's pointless. Since a 2002 electoral reform and the establishment of parliamentary elections after the presidential election, voters began to consider that they had already expressed themselves in the presidential election and that the die had been cast. An incorrect assumption, of course, but since 2002, turnout for the legislative elections has been declining. It has even been below 50% since 2017.
"It's going to be different this time," said Allorant. This election is reminiscent of the one held in 1997 after Jacques Chirac dissolved the Assemblée Nationale. Seven out of 10 voters turned out to vote. As in 1997, the parliamentary elections triggered by President Emmanuel Macron will decide "who will govern," noted the professor. Brice Teinturier, deputy director general of the Ipsos polling institute, told Le Parisien on June 23: "The French have perfectly understood what is at stake in these elections: An alternative is possible without waiting until 2027." This "changes the game," he said.
And that's without taking into account the "historic" stakes involved, reminded Allorant: "The far right could come to power. This hasn't happened since 1940." The Rassemblement National (RN) is urging its voters to get out and vote. On June 18, RN president Jordan Bardella, who has promised to take up the role of prime minister in the event of an outright victory, said on Europe 1: "I say to the French people: there is a historic opportunity to reverse the course of history, to change politics in our country. And to do that, I need to have an absolute majority."
The united left is also hoping for an absolute majority. Eric Coquerel, a candidate for the Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP) alliance, has done the sums. In the European elections, he pointed out on June 20 that the RN recovered almost all the votes (7,765,936) that it had obtained in the first round of the 2022 presidential election (8,133,828). The left, on the other hand, has "a greater reserve of votes," 8,634,119 votes in the European elections versus 11,028,177 in 2022. "Quite simply," concluded Coquerel, "We need to get voters, including those who have despaired of the left for years, to come and understand that this time, the situation is serious."
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